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From the Studio

Want to create better experience for your visitors? From the Studio features expert advice, practical tips, tools and insights from our talented team, covering everything from exhibit design and fabrication to interpretation and visitor engagement.

New blogs are posted regularly, or feel free to explore our archive of past entires. Have a question or thought to share? We’d love to hear from you!

The Interpretation Sceptic: Is Your Learning Style a Thing?

I was interested in learning styles because it may directly correlate to interpretive exhibit design, which relies heavily on non-personal interpretation. Learning styles just felt intuitive, common sensical. It did not take long to discover that I, and apparently a large swath of educators, implemented this theory before confirming it. To ensure we are all on the same page, learning styles is widely used to describe how learners gather, sift through, interpret, organize, come to conclusions about, and “store” information for further use.

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Sensory Stories: Awakening Memories with Smell, Sound, and Touch

Early last week, I excitedly rushed to my doorstep to receive a package. The contents? Some dead, dry stems from a shrub—more specifically, a creosote bush. Creosote bush grows throughout the Sonoran, Chihuahuan, and Mojave deserts. It’s not very unusual looking, and its flowers, while attractive, are hardly the most dazzling. It can’t be used for culinary purposes, and it isn’t prized in the nursery trade. So why did I send away for this small bundle of twigs?

The Exhibit Flip Door – A False Sense of Interactivity?

My wife and I have finished our last will and testaments. It wasn’t all that morose. The best part of this adulting activity was determining our tombstone inscriptions. We set out to create uplifting, perhaps motivational, last thoughts to be set in granite. My wife’s inscription was truly beautiful. Not to be outdone, so was mine.

The Visual Language Paradigm: Exhibit Design for Universal Access

Before diving into exhibit design, let’s start this post with a tired truism: a picture is worth a thousand words. Boring, right? Wrong. I am a First Generation American. When my family arrived in this country in 1992, only my parents spoke English. Every day of every summer, while school was out of session for me, they went to work. I spent the days with my grandmother. We did all the usual things: played outside, did arts and crafts, saw friends. But most importantly, we took the train to Chicago and went to the museums and zoos. Between her incredibly limited English (please, thank you, help, bathroom) and my elementary school reading level (my earliest museum memories start around kindergarten), we were a pair who may not have gotten much joy out of exhibits. Yet, we did. We came back many times. We spent hours at the Field Museum and Brookfield Zoo. When I got a bit older, we added the Art Institute of Chicago to our travels.

Exhibit Wayfinding: An Undervalued Visitor Need

All museums, nature centers, and other informal learning venues have some system of wayfinding. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of these systems varies significantly. Top-notch wayfinding benefits visitors in many ways.

“Thanks, I Hate it!”: Reframing Negative Feedback

The nightmare: you’re standing in front of a room full of people, presenting something you’ve worked hard on. Maybe it’s art, or a report, or even a performance. Everyone’s response? “I hate it!” You run away, hurt and upset, making the decision then and there to never do art/writing/acting again. Maybe you’ve lived this situation, or maybe it haunts you in the occasional anxiety dream. Either way, it’s time to flip it on its head. Instead of running away or waking in a cold sweat, I want to suggest an alternate ending. When everyone says “I hate it,” know you’ve done your job well and say “thank you.” The key reason for presenting anything to a group is to get feedback. Unless you’re a professional giving a concert, acting in a play, or opening a gallery, showing your work to people is a step in the growth process.

Revealing What is Hidden: Interpretive Investigation

Before becoming an interpretive planner with TSI, I was lucky to work as an on-site interpreter in outdoor settings across the country. Each place has its charms, but few call to me like the deserts of the American southwest. These vast and arid lands remain my favorite places to explore, learn, and reflect. While working as an interpretive ranger in the Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona, I encountered hundreds of curious visitors and transplants who were unfamiliar with desert ecology. I wanted to learn about their first impressions.

A Simple Addition to Nature Center Exhibits to Enhance Meaning and Memory Making

Status Quo Bias (SQB) is the human preference for choosing the known over the unknown. When confronted with choices, people disproportionately gravitate towards familiar options. The less familiar the option, the riskier it feels. The term was coined in the late 1980s, in the paper “Status Quo Bias in Decision Making.” This predisposition to choose the status quo got me thinking about nature center exhibits. Could SQB account, at least partially, for the conformity of nature center exhibits?

From Limelight to Daylight: Transitioning into Exhibit Design

Scenic design is the holistic creation of a stage environment. The scenic designer is the first artist whose work an audience sees as they enter the theatre. Before the play has even started, the scenery is visible (or strategically obscured), setting the mood before a single word is spoken. Without the input of other design areas or actors, an audience is left to sit with the scenery and their thoughts. Much like walking into an exhibit without an on-site interpreter, the time before a play begins is a self-guided tour of the set.

Beyond Facts: Crafting a Strong Central Theme

Imagine that you have inherited an enormous mansion filled from floor to ceiling with objects: oil paintings, sculptures, clothing, toys, books, farm equipment, and furniture. Now imagine that you have been tasked with combing through these objects to create a meaningful and cohesive exhibit. This could overwhelm even the most experienced museum curators—but it doesn’t need to if a strong central theme has been developed. During a client workshop, the development of a central theme becomes the guiding principle that shapes the rest of the exhibit design. It answers the most fundamental questions that transform our “mansion of assorted objects” into something approachable, educational, meaningful, and fun. What do we want visitors to walk away with in their hearts and minds? What is most relevant or captivating?

Making Magic

Here at TSI, we sometimes work with clients who have inherited taxidermy and aren’t sure if it should be incorporated into a new exhibit. These clientele express concerns about durability, aesthetics, and even relevance, depending on the exhibit’s central theme. One great benefit of working with TSI is our ability to fabricate lifelike models of many plant and animal species. Our skilled sculptors and painters work alongside our interpretive planners to accurately capture the anatomy, habitats, and behaviors of fish, amphibians, birds and beyond.

Working Through Problems in Projects

In projects, there is no shortage of opportunities to disagree on the details that impact the success of the project. As a project manager, these conversations are crucial to the success of you, your team, and the project.

Advantages of Design Build

With more than 30 years and hundreds of clients, Taylor Studios has worked with clients at every phase of the exhibit process. From conception to completion, and everything it takes to reach the anticipated grand opening.